The Library gratefully received a gift of lantern slides and glass plate negatives from the Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College, USA in 1998.

This collection of 166 hand-tinted glass lantern slides, 53 glass plate negatives and 6 plastic negatives, contains images of portraits, landscapes, scenery and architecture in China as well as shots documenting the social conditions and economic activities of the Chinese from the 1900s to the 1930s.

The CIM (China Inland Mission, renamed the Overseas Missionary Fellowship in 1964) used these slides and negatives in slide shows about its missionary work for churches in the United States. This project digitized 225 lantern slides and negatives to preserve their intrinsic documentary and artistic value.